The center must prove to the Swiss that it respects them
Gerhard Pfister leaves the bar of a shipless ship.keystone (montage)
Comment
The center has had all the sentences in the world to present two candidates for the Federal Council, while it has a reservoir of qualified political figures. It is time for centrists to shake a little.
03.02.2025, 20:5603.02.2025, 22:13
We think we dream. After the announcement of the resignation of Viola Amherd, the center was not able to align the candidates to defend its headquarters to the Federal Council. The withdrawals followed one another: Gerhard Pfister, Isabelle Chassot, Martin Candinas, we pass. This political sequence was, let’s say, quite heartbreaking.
It has been years since the party has made considerable efforts to maintain the erosion of its electorate. Its president Gerhard Pfister, sacrificing part of his Catholic heritage, took matters into his own hands. By deciding to integrate the Protestant PBD and transform the Christian Democratic Party into the Center, it made it possible to stabilize its scores and open its arms to new deconfessionalized urban voters.
All that for that?
The uncertainty was great, the real challenge – and the success present, in the federal elections of 2023. All that, for what? For the president and the centrist federal councilor to end up approximately a few days, without consultation, leaving behind this electorate on the tile, witness and amazed by a lack of flagrant leadership after all these efforts provided.
The signal sent is distressing. To vote for a party is to want to represent us in Parliament – which then elects the Supreme Executive. We are therefore waiting for him to show a little bit of vigor to launch his champion at the top of the pyramid.
No women
We also note the absence of a woman on the ticket. A surprise because, unlike the UDC for example, the center is full of female profiles in its ranks, like Isabelle Chassot, Andrea Gmür-Schönenberger or Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter.
Take the latter. How to understand, for example, that she does not start? She was a candidate for the post of Viola Amherd, at the succession of Doris Leuthard, in 2018, when she had less experience. At 60, including 14 on the national council, the timing seems perfect. But the elected representative explains promoting her commitment to the economy and foreign policy. And that’s it.
We can understand that the hardness of the federal advisor’s job is not attractive alongside the comfort of parliamentary habits. The family argument was also highlighted by some. Certainly. But the job of the Center steering committee is also to find – or convince? – The right profile to present yourself, out of respect for its voters. Sometimes caricatured as “knee soft”, the center hands the stick to get beaten.
The PLR must laugh
The PLR must have a good laugh. He who thought he was concerned with his second seat, he discovers that the center is barely capable of putting someone on his only throne. Will centist strategists keep their best cartridges to attack the siege of Ignazio Cassis? It would be surprising because there are enough heavy goods vehicles to send a duo “at the very top”.
One wonders if the Federal Assembly would not be tempted to elect a wild candidate to “punish” the center of a certain arrogance. Facetious, Roger Nordmann indicated on the RTS, smile, that if the centrists did not have a “choice” (at least two candidates) in the assembly, perhaps we would vote for the green’liberals, for example The Tiana Angelina Moser states advisor. A joke that has warning value: “Get your shit togetherThe center ”.
The unforeseen events are already legion when a party plays the rules of the game. Remember the socialist slingman Daniel Jositsch, wild candidate of two elections, or the Greens who have tried (without much success) to overthrow Ignazio Cassis by Gerhard Andrey.
The center has made order in its positioning. It is time for him now to shake himself, resume vigor and to show that he does not take his voters – and the Swiss – for pigeons.
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Tribute in pictures to Viola Amherd
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The candidates for the succession of Viola Amherd have until noon on Monday to announce themselves. A few hours before this period, the center struggles to find candidates. Only the national councilor and president of the Swiss Union of Peasants Markus Ritter (SG) came out of the wood.